Trump blasts falsehoods at first post-election rally

“They’re trying to convince us we lost,” Trump said. “We didn’t lose…All these swings states I’m fighting, I won them all by a lot.”

Earlier in the day it was reported that Trump had called Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp to urge him to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state and convince state legislators to declare Trump the winner instead.

Kemp, who has been a loyal ally of Trump, replied that he was not able to fulfil the request.

At the rally Trump said: “Your Governor could stop it very easily if he knew what the hell he was doing.”

Trump, who spent months before polling day sowing doubt about the legitimacy of the election results, claimed he would have accepted defeat if he had lost fairly.

“If I lost, I’d be a very gracious loser,” he said. “If I lost, I would say I lost, and I’d go to Florida and I’d take it easy and I’d go around and I’d say I did a good job.”

During the event the packed crowd – most of whom were not wearing masks or socially distancing despite a surge of coronavirus cases in the US – regularly broke into chants of ‘”stop the steal” and “fight for Trump”.

“We’re all victims – everybody here,” Trump said. “All these thousands of people here tonight.”

Republicans have been growing increasingly worried that Trump’s continued claims of election fraud could depress conservative turnout in the upcoming Senate races if voters become convinced their ballots will not count.

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If Democrats win both of the Georgia Senate run-offs then they will seize control of the US Senate, giving them control of all three branches of the federal government in Washington. If Republicans win either of the two races in Georgia on January 5, they will retain control of the Senate.

While claiming that Democrats were trying to steal the upcoming Senate elections, Trump urged his supporters to vote as an act of “revenge” for what happened in November.

“The answer to the Democratic fraud is not to stay at home,” Trump said in his 76-minute speech.

“They can only win if they cheat… If you don’t vote, the socialists and the communists win.

“We can fight for the presidency and fight for our two great senators and do it at the same time.”

Among Trump’s more extreme claims were that Biden could not possibly have won 80 million votes when only 1000 people watched a speech he delivered on Thanksgiving (many more people watched the speech).

The member of the Electoral College are scheduled to meet on December 14 to cast their vote and officially declare Biden the winner of the election.